Rough up apprentice coming in for employment (6)
I believe the answer is:
tousle
'rough up' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both to do with contact as well as being verbs in their base form.
Perhaps they are linked in a way I don't understand?
'apprentice coming in for employment' is the wordplay.
'apprentice' becomes 'L' (as in a learner driver with L-plates on their car).
'coming in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'for' becomes 'to' (eg both can mean 'in the opinion of').
'employment' becomes 'use' (how something is used).
'to'+'use'='touse'
'l' placed inside 'touse' is 'TOUSLE'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for tousle that I've seen before include "Treat roughly" , "Ruffle (the hair)" , "Make hair untidy by ruffling" , "disarray" , "Ruffle - disarrange" .)